there are some people stupid enough to believe that you actually HAVE to sacrifice character concept, believability, and teamwork to optimize the character in survival situations.
I agree with the overall sentiment, but also think that you may be painting a bit too broadly with that statement.
Under 25 point buy, you
could make a wise, intelligent, charismatic fighter, but I doubt you could call that character truly "optimised" for a role as a purely damage-dealing fighter, compared to his fighting buddy with 18 STR. If you had a character concept revolving around such a vision, yes, I think your character concept could be compromised if you envisioned such a fighter to be combat optimised for fighting, as well as a smart, wise, leader type.
For instance, a player was trying to construct a character like Duncan Idaho (very deadly knife-fighter, very wise and charismatic too), and it became a bit of a matter of compromise. We handwaved it somewhat by rationalising that in D&D terms, Duncan Idaho could be considered high level due to his background and resulting experience and wisdom, but meantime, the player had to compromise between fighting ability and intellectual roleplaying attributes.
I think the tying of attributes to roleplaying sticks in my craw a bit, because the balancing mechanisms of the game system can sometimes end up dictating PC roleplaying opportunities. On closer inspection, the attributes actually fly in the face of the "don't balance combat bonuses with roleplaying penalties", which is one of the cornerstone standards of D&D 3E. Effectively you are trading pluses to hit, damage, HP, and AC with the ability to be likeable in social situations and your range of (often non-combat oriented) skills.
I can see the beginnings of a (currently very flawed) solution as far as INT and WIS go, at least - replace them with something like Magical Aptitude, and Divine Aptitude, and divorce them from their definition of mental ability - leave that to the player's choice. (I can't think of a substitute for CHA, so we'll ignore it for now.) The obvious problems with this approach is that (A) there's no reason to build Magical Aptitude nor Divine Aptitude if you don't use arcane or divine magic, (B) you've just orphaned the dependence of saving throws and skills upon the abilities, and (C) there's no numerical representation of mental ability to guide DMs in roleplaying NPCs. So obviously, this prototype is broke, but I hope you see where such alternatives to the INT/WIS/CHA standard can lead.
Maybe this sacred cow is due for slaughter come 4E!
